An attempt to scrub the gathering moss off some stones and help them keep rolling smoothly along ... Thoughts on information technology and anything else, by Tony Austin, after a lifetime in Science and then the IT industry.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

After many decades of sun and surf, I’ve finished up with a circular bald patch on my scalp where a melanoma was removed last year.

Such skin cancers can happen to anyone at all, typically appearing from teenage onwards. It’s particularly distressing to see beautiful young people dying quite quickly from skin cancer, with melanomas being the prime cause.

If detected and removed early enough, there’s a fair chance of recovery and hanging around on this wonderful blue planet of ours for five to ten years or even longer.

In my case, nobody noticed the melanoma brewing away atop my noggin. Its presence was confirmed only after I decided to go to a specialist for another skin spot, and he found it while doing a complete body scan. (I’m quite surprised that various hairdressers over the years didn’t ever commented on it.)

You owe it to yourself (plus those near and dear to you) to check your skin REGULARLY for the appearance of suspect moles and other skin spots.

“Cutaneous malignant melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. The disease is one of the fastest growing cancers among Caucasian (white) populations and is an escalating health problem even among young individuals.”

The Swedish study mentions that “Melanoma of the skin can be cured if the tumour is surgically removed before the cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body” and that’s certainly what I’m hoping for in my case.

In my readings I’ve discovered that melanoma is frighteningly aggressive in its spread (metastasis). The biggest criticism is that the video is prudish in not mentioning that checks must include the entire groin region, front and back. You should also check the less obvious spots, such as between the toes.

“The life-threatening cells form different shapes allowing them to squeeze their way out of tumours, travel through the bloodstreams or even raid soft tissues such as the brain. The cells can also assume a long thin shape giving the life-threatening disease the ability to travel through harder tissues like bone.”

Andrew Binstock, Editor in Chief at Dr. Dobb’s, has hit the nail on the head in two recent editorials about development toolsets that every coder should read:

Just Let Me Code! (22 July 2014) - Managing the complexity of development toolchains — from SCM, to the build tools, to the testing, to the deployment stack — now so overwhelms the developer experience, it's hard to get any real programming done.

Getting Back to Coding (29 July 2014) - Reducing tool complexity requires mercilessly applying YAGNI to your toolchain. Resist the siren songs of new, popular memes and the blandishments of vendors, and choose the tools that deliver only what you need.

… “That problem is most acutely felt by two groups: solo developers and those working either in SMBs or for-hire at a client site. Those least affected are programmers at enterprises, which can afford dedicated staff” …

Andrew obviously hit a nerve, there being quite a few assenting comments!

Well it is possible, pretty much, by taking advantage of the underlying Eclipse Workbench ability to move and dock "views” (here used in the Eclipse sense).

Open Help for Domino Designer and navigate to: >>> Workbench User Guide >>>>>> Tasks >>>>>>>>> Working with views and editors

This documentation is rather sparse, so I recorded an off-the-cuff demo that should give you a fair idea about the way this capability works. (Sorry about the croaky throat, it’s winter season here Down Under in Melbourne.)

In the Eclipse Workbench there’s the ability to have “detached views” (which would be the exact equivalent of opening a Notes data view in a new window), however this doesn’t seem to have been implemented in IBM Domino Designer.

Nevertheless what’s there is pretty good, so go try it out and maybe improve your developer productivity.

About Me

Tony Austin ... Trained in science and engineering, still tend to approach life from a scientist's or engineer's viewpoint, but over the years have picked up skills in sales/marketing, journalism and other non-technical areas. Taught Chemistry / Math / Science in high schools. Joined IBM Australia in 1970, retired in 1995, since then have been an "independent consultant" [an oxymoron]. So now I have over four decades in the IT business, still enjoying it enormously - except, that is, for the same silly mistakes being repeated time and time again in function and interfaces, won't we ever learn? ... Decided to retire from IT consulting at end of 2013 after 44 years in the industry, closed Asia/Pacific Computer Services then, but am still regularly writing technology articles as an industry observer.